


so it is written

by sabinelagrande



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Consent Play, F/M, Family, Friendship, Genre Savvy Newton Pulsifer, Happy Ending, Minor Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Prophecy, Self-Doubt, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: Anathema burned the second volume, so maybe this was her fault.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale & Crowley & Anathema Device & Newton Pulsifer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54
Collections: JoyFest 2020





	so it is written

**Author's Note:**

  * For [longwhitecoats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/longwhitecoats/gifts).



> Many thanks to pearwaldorf, technophobia, and dizmo for reading this over! Also thanks to longwhitecoats for organizing this exchange. I hope you like it!

Anathema doesn't wake up.

She doesn't die or anything, what happens is she's sleeping and then she doesn't wake up. She does something else that brings her to some kind of consciousness, in a dream but also not dreaming at all. She sees it in first person, like her dreams usually aren't, and when she taps her bare foot against the floor she's standing on, it's hard and solid. 

She is wearing a nightgown she hasn't worn since she was seven, but that isn't the weirdest thing happening. It seems to be sized up appropriately, even if it still has cartoon ducks on it, and it's actually pretty comfortable.

There's not much of this space visible, enough for five or six people to stand around in before it dissolves into a coppery mist. There's no sound, not at first; Anathema jumps when the silence is suddenly broken. It's a tak, tak, tak sound, like the heels of shoes, but with some kind of metallic jangling, and Anathema wishes she had anything to defend herself with. She doesn't even have a pendulum, which isn't an actual weapon but which you can whip someone in the head with.

Stepping out of the mist into the void that surrounds Anathema, there is a woman, and Anathema knows instantly and with absolute surety who it is. Her wavy brown hair is hanging down around her shoulders; she's wearing a long dress that sags unnaturally at the hem, something in it rattling as she walks. Anathema smells the gunpowder immediately, and she knows that if she looked, she'd see it trailing out onto the floor.

Sometimes, in a way Anathema doesn't like admitting, it feels weird thinking about meeting Agnes. There are a lot of generations of Devices, and Anathema is aware that by now, she, Agnes's direct descendant, probably doesn't look anything like Agnes. She usually just threw herself into the prophecies when she thought about it; that was always the best way to keep from going astray.

But Agnes looks her dead in the eyes, and in a flash Anathema can see reflected herself, and her mother, and her grandfather, and his mother, and back and back and back down the line to Agnes. Suddenly they're all of a piece, a lineage, an unbroken chain that only grew stronger as links were added, and something in Anathema that's always been tensed eases.

"This is not to my taste," Agnes says, glancing around at the space. "Theatrical frippery."

"Mother Agnes," Anathema says, suddenly desperate to apologize, to beg for clemency. "Forgive me, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have--"

"You think I didn't know?" Agnes says. "You thought I wouldn't see?" She leans forward; somehow she's taller than Anathema, and Anathema feels even more like a scared kid. "You destroyed the prophecies, child. Do you know what that means?" Anathema shakes her head, unable to speak. "It means that you have to start again."

"I--" Anathema furrows her brow. "What does that mean?"

"I saw the future because I had the Sight," Agnes says. She touches two fingers to Anathema's forehead, and the contact makes a sizzling sound that makes Anathema wince, even though it doesn't hurt. She feels frozen to the spot, held in place by the touch. "There's no more future to see, so you're left with the Power." 

Agnes takes her fingers away, and Anathema inhales shakily. Nothing feels different except for an odd tingle in her forehead and a sense of terrible dread.

"You have to carve out the future of our line," Agnes says. "Nothing matters but our well-being, do you understand that?"

"Yes, ma'am," Anathema says. She's heard that since she was a little girl, but now it seems like so much more, something awful, a momentous burden, too much to be trusted with.

"Stop looking like that, child," Agnes says, her voice gentler, and she brushes Anathema's hair back from her face. "There's nothing vicious in you." 

Anathema doesn't know how Agnes heard that fear, but it isn't really surprising that she did, as the rules seem to be weird here. Besides, it's Agnes. She waves a hand. "Tell the boy he's changing his name. No more Pulsifers. They had their turn."

"Yes, ma'am," Anathema says dutifully.

"Well, give your grandmother a kiss and go back to bed," Agnes says, and she leans down. Anathema pecks her on the cheek, and for some reason it feels perfectly normal.

And then Anathema actually does wake up.

She doesn't jolt awake or startle, even though she has every right to. She just blinks her eyes open, finding herself in the bed where she went to sleep. Newt is gone and she smells coffee, things that are almost certainly related.

She reaches for her dream journal, which sits with its pen on the nightstand. She writes down everything she can remember, the way her mother taught her to do it, going through step by step and picking out each detail. Unlike how her mother taught her, she leaves herself a little space every time to unpack, write down what she's feeling in the moment, not just what happened in the dream.

 _Agnes wasn't what I thought she would be,_ Anathema writes, in her precise script. _It felt okay? A good thing? I think she likes me. This is ~~useful~~ comforting. I just want some coffee before I figure this out._ She smiles to herself. _Newt will be up here within thirty seconds with a cup for me._

Anathema closes the journal and puts it aside. Before she can get out of bed, she hears someone thundering up the stairs. The door is ajar, and Newt hip-checks it open and bursts through, carrying the coffee pot and a cup. He pours the coffee into the cup hurriedly, wincing as some of it drips on his hand, and he holds it out to Anathema.

"Coffee," Newt wheezes. "For you."

"Oh, shit," Anathema says, her eyes going wide.

\--

Aziraphale and Crowley are there sooner than they should be, though not instantaneously, which Anathema finds interesting but doesn't know how to ask about. She doesn't know who else to call; sometimes they just huddle up like this still, even though the End has long since passed. They have a kind of bond, the people who were there at the air base, and Aziraphale and Anathema supplement each other's knowledge in a way Anathema finds really useful.

Crowley and Newt are there too. Sometimes they even help.

Either way, Anathema suddenly has the Power, a thing she's never even heard of, and maybe she can command people with words, and she can be forgiven for calling on the two most powerful people she knows to help her sort it out.

Aziraphale is the one who knocks on the door, a thing that is very clear from the pattern, which is two deliberate raps and not a lazy version of "shave and a haircut" that never resolves into "two bits". Newt follows Anathema when she goes to open it, both Aziraphale and Crowley waiting on the other side looking, well, exactly as they always do.

"Anathema, Newton," Aziraphale says, looking at both of them with genuine affection, crow's feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes. "How wonderful to see you."

"Yeah, same," Crowley says, looking puzzled and distracted. He sticks his nose up in the air, scenting it. He snorts, like he's trying to clear it. "Oh yeah. Somebody's got it."

"What?" Aziraphale says, frowning. 

"What you said," Crowley says, and Aziraphale's eyebrows go up. Crowley gets right up in Newt's personal space, sniffing him. "Not you. Nice aftershave. Suits you." He turns to Anathema, and she wisely puts out a hand. He takes it and holds it under his nose, then jerks back. "Yep. It's her."

"I am extremely lost," Newt says.

"I know," Crowley says, stepping past him and inside.

"Well," Aziraphale says, and the word contains a lot. "Shall we have some tea and talk? Or perhaps something stronger? You know, I think it's possible you forgot a bottle of wine in your sideboard."

Aziraphale takes Newt by the arm and leads him in, and Anathema shuts the door. 

There is, of course, a very old bottle of wine in the sideboard, complete with corkscrew, and by this point Anathema already knows she didn't forget anything. She also knows the corkscrew is, well, just to screw with her. When she gets to the living room, she hands the bottle to Crowley, who takes it with a smirk. He makes a popping noise with his mouth, lifting the bottle, and the cork lands in his other hand.

Aziraphale and Crowley are, at the same time, beings of immense spiritual power and Anathema's boozy gay uncles. That's not a negative at all; it's more like goals.

Newt has already set out glasses, and Crowley pours, with no regard with how much wine you're actually supposed to put in a glass. 

"To new old friends," Crowley says. "Well. New friend we already knew." He takes a drink without waiting for anybody else.

"You're going to do poor Newt's head in if you keep talking like that," Aziraphale chides, after he sips.

"Mine too," Anathema says. "You're acting like you know what's happening."

Aziraphale sighs and takes a much bigger sip. "I have some conjectures," he allows. "I also have a lot of unanswered questions."

"Something changed," Anathema says. "That much everybody knows."

"I'll drink to that," Crowley says, somehow now taking up half the sofa and part of Aziraphale.

"I gained the Power," Anathema says. "That's what Agnes said. I don't know what the Power is. I don't even know if there's one power, or if there's just some amount of power that's distributed, and it's not in my books, and I don't know if it has limits, and--"

"Anathema," Aziraphale says, catching her hands in the gentlest touch imaginable. "It's alright. Power isn't unusual. It's just that I don't know how you have any."

Anathema takes a deep breath, and Aziraphale lets her go. "I would appreciate literally any explanation."

"You see, the thing is," Aziraphale says, with that little wriggle he does when he's settling in to explain something, "all powers angelic and demonic are just extensions of Her power."

"No, demonic powers are extensions of Satan," Crowley says.

Aziraphale purses his lips. "Just as the moon radiates no light of its own and merely reflects the sun--"

"Not this shit again," Crowley says, rolling his eyes. "Look--"

"Anyway," Aziraphale continues over him, "the power I have, the power that Crowley has, the power Adam has, they are all the same thing, in different strengths and for different purposes. They allow one to--" He makes a beckoning motion to Crowley. "Oh, help me, dear, you explain it better."

"Make the fabric of reality do what you want it to do," Crowley says, sitting up insouciantly, which is a feat. "Mold it like dough. Adam could have reshaped the whole planet." He cocks his head at Aziraphale. "This one uses it to make sure his toast is always the right shade of brown."

"Says the demon who uses his to make his headlamps turn on and off," Aziraphale says, with an unamused look. "The essence of the power is that, if the world isn't the way you want, you recreate the world into the world that contains that thing. Like so." He holds out his hand, indicating the table next to him. "I am quite peckish. In this world, there is no blueberry pie on this table. I would like there to be a pie here."

"But, like, British pie, where the bottom is all crunchy and dry, or American pie, where it's fine if the filling soaks through?" Anathema asks, which is unrelated to spiritual power but important in a culinary sense.

Aziraphale considers this for a moment. "I would like there to be two pies here," he says. "So I draw on Her love and create a world where there is pie on this table." He draws his hand down, suddenly there are two pies on the table, steaming away, like there was never a question that they were there. "And that is how divine power works."

"I do not draw on _Her love_ ," Crowley sneers, in a poor impression of Aziraphale. "I harness His infernal majesty." He hands Aziraphale a bundle wrapped in a red napkin, a pie server tied on the outside with a piece of black ribbon, which did not previously exist. "You forgot silverware." He looks at Anathema like he's challenging her. "And plates."

Aziraphale looks excited. "I want you to think about there being plates here," he says intently. "Know what the world would look like if they existed."

"You just," Anathema says, " _know_ , and that's it?"

"Yeah," Crowley says. "I mean, the hand motions help." He nudges Aziraphale. "Show her, angel."

"Oh, right," Aziraphale says. "You see, angels--" he makes a downward pulling motion. "From Heaven, you see? And demons--" He raises his hand gingerly. "From, you know."

"And snapping," Crowley says. "Very important."

"The snapping is not at all necessary," Aziraphale says. "The snapping is because you think it looks cool."

"Then why do you do it?" Crowley says mockingly.

"Nothing," Anathema says, because she's been, as is not unusual, trying to get some actual work done while Aziraphale and Crowley are being themselves at each other. "I tried to know and nothing." She can visualize it quite easily, even said the words in her head, but the plates continue to not be there. 

"Well, that's a bit of a problem," Crowley says.

"A hand motion," Anathema says under her breath. She looks to Newt. "Grab me a piece of paper."

Newt, who just looks happy to be included, gets up immediately and retrieves the notepad and pen that sits in the kitchen; Anathema flips past the grocery list and thinks very carefully about what she's going to write down.

 _A gift will be placed on the front steps of this house five minutes from now: a cardboard box containing a sealed package of twenty-five party-size paper plates. The courier will be in another location when the door opens,_ she writes. She holds up the pad. "Who's got a timer?"

"That seems a touch overly specific," Crowley says, lifting his glasses to peer at it. "Like the handwriting, though."

"I'm a witch," Anathema says, shrugging. "The control you have over a spell is only as good as how you word it. My mother taught me that when I was still in elementary school." She sees Newt looking at her, and she raises an eyebrow at him. "And you think that's weird."

"No, no," Newt says quickly. "I was just thinking about how I'm in awe of your mother, and also terrified by the thought of meeting her."

"Good," Anathema says, pleased.

"Well, we have a few minutes," Aziraphale says. He holds up the bottle of wine. "Anyone?"

The next five minutes are the longest that Anathema has experienced in a long time, not counting the End. She jumps out of her chair when the alarm on Crowley's phone goes off, which she had of course not seen him set.

"Shall we?" Crowley asks.

Anathema lets out a resolute breath and goes to the door. She opens it without pausing, so she can't lose her nerve.

There's a brown box sitting on the front steps. It looks like it's supposed to be there, completely unassuming, like any other package. The only thing that marks it is a single bow, stuck haphazardly on the top.

It was a gift, after all.

Anathema picks it up like it's a live grenade, carefully carrying it back to the living room and setting it down on the coffee table. Aziraphale wordlessly hands her a knife, and she slits the packing tape, opening the flaps. All of them peer down into the box.

"I'll serve," Newt says. "Who wants which?"

The pie and the wine make for good fortification, which Anathema is sorely in need of. "So Agnes had some kind of spiritual power," she says, as Newt gives her a second slice of pie; she should have asked for ice cream. "Was it like this?"

"Well," Crowley says, particularly shiftily. "You know, ah--"

"No one knows," Aziraphale says, wincing. "She was the only mortal who ever predicted the future accurately. No one did it before and no one's done it since. There are, obviously, witches--"

"And they don't have the power to change the nature of reality just because they know it's different," Anathema says. "Or because they make a hand motion, or because they snap, or because they write things down."

"Ha!" Crowley says, looking delighted. "I was right! Book Girl!"

"From my readings--and do correct me--" Aziraphale says, ignoring Crowley, "a witch's power is drawn from--"

"The fundamental forces that underpin the Earth, yeah," Anathema says.

"You are quite capable of doing that, so my best guess is that perhaps that's the source of the power you've acquired?" Aziraphale says uncertainly. He sighs. "For all anyone knows, Agnes could see through time." He looks frustrated, like the problem is too messy, like he wants to tidy it up. "No one really even understands if she caused the future to happen the way it did by modifying its progression to serve her family, or if it was always going to happen and she was telling her descendants what they would be doing in advance."

"She gave us a guide," Anathema says adamantly. "We followed it exactly, from John Device, the Believer, all the way to me. When we strayed from the path, she always knew and pushed us back in the right direction."

Aziraphale frowns. "That has somehow not answered the question at all."

"Most powerful mortal that ever lived, she was," Crowley says. "Shame she _was_ mortal." He gives Aziraphale a look. "Your former cohorts saw to that."

"Who are also _your_ former cohorts, by extension," Aziraphale returns.

Crowley looks contemplative. "Oh yeah, I guess they would be."

"It's the ultimate spell," Newt says, out of nowhere.

"Huh?" Anathema says.

"You explained it to me," Newt says. "A spell is when you ask for power to do something. You have your intention, but you never have a guarantee that what you ask for will happen."

Anathema feels deeply pleased; she hadn't actually thought he'd been listening. It wasn't that Newt ignored her on a regular basis or anything. It's just that she hadn't had her top on at the time, and she basically wrote off him remembering anything she said in that state.

"So you have the ability to cast spells that always come true," Newt continues. "Your intention, or what you write down regarding it, is always what happens." He holds up his hands, like he's looking at a board they can't see. "Agnes was the last true witch in England, so the Devices left England. That's how they did it. That's how this works."

"He's going to start putting red string on the walls," Crowley says.

"Shush," Aziraphale says.

"The destruction of the second volume released Agnes's power," Newt says, like no one else is there. "It was bound to the prophecies, because the future already existed as long as the prophecies existed. It doesn't matter if Agnes made things happen or recorded them because the power is the same, the power is to reshape the future, Agnes was writing for her descendants so the Power is written or the power was written, we can't know, the Power is the power of a witch but it's the power of Agnes's bloodline too, because it's the same thing, Agnes was the last true witch in England and Anathema is her heir, Anathema is the last true witch in England."

Newt looks up at the rest of them, looking confused at their expressions.

"That's the logical solution, anyway," he says, shrugging. He looks embarrassed. "I'm really good at finding patterns."

Anathema has such an overwhelming rush of fondness for him that she wants, more than usual, to change his name. There are very good reasons she keeps him around, even though she knows it isn't immediately apparent.

"If I did follow that correctly, what I heard made sense," Aziraphale says. "Agnes, however the mechanics worked, made the future work out right for her family using prophecy."

"But the prophecies are over," Anathema says. She sinks. "So the future has already started, and I'm in charge of it."

"Eh," Crowley says. "Wouldn't count on it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Anathema asks.

"I can't make the seas freeze," Crowley says, waggling his fingers. "I can't bring down an empire with a thought. On a good or a very bad day, I can make myself a sealed pocket in space, but that's my biggest party trick."

"I always thought stopping time was so much more impressive," Aziraphale says.

"I said biggest," Crowley says, though he looks pleased.

"Agnes couldn't do those things either," Anathema says, working her way through it. "She only ever concerned herself with her family. They had a role at the End, but it took her centuries to set up how that came to pass."

Crowley throws up his hands. "Finally, someone who appreciates a long con."

"If this Power really is for and from Agnes's bloodline, then it would appear that their future is what you have to control," Aziraphale says. "As to how that is going to happen, I am afraid there is no book or scroll you can consult that will tell you. Perhaps if you start with short periods until you understand it, but like Agnes, you will eventually just have to assume that it will continue to work."

"Mortality," Crowley spits. "But if you do want tips on how to make a ten year plan, that's more my department."

"I make plans," Aziraphale says indignantly.

"You really don't," Crowley says. "I make plans so far in advance I forget about them by the time they come to fruition."

"I don't know why you think that reflects well on you," Aziraphale says.

Anathema feels Newt slip his arms around her, easing her towards him and resting her head on his shoulder. She's thankful for it. He was awkward when they met, but now Newt seems to know when she needs to be supported; right now she really, really does. She's always felt the burden of her bloodline, but she thought she had moved beyond it. She doesn't know whether it feels like a homecoming or something she never wanted to go back to.

Crowley has, by this point, noticed Anathema dropping out of the conversation. He nudges Aziraphale, who takes in the scene.

"Should we go, or should there be a bottle of wine beside the couch?" Aziraphale says delicately.

"Wine, please," Anathema says.

"Excellent choice, my dear," Aziraphale says, reaching down and pulling out a different bottle, this one already uncorked. "A little more wine, a good nap, and then things will look clearer."

"You're advocating for naps now?" Crowley says, concerned.

"Oh, _I'm_ not going to take a nap," Aziraphale says, pouring the wine almost to the brim of Anathema's glass. "Perish the thought."

The rest of the day is a wash, but it was always going to be. Anathema just lets it happen, and then she gets up in the morning, gets out a notebook, and tries to make some sense of her life.

It doesn't really work. She keeps trying to get it into order, take what she thinks she's been given and put it in a straight line. It just won't go; it's like trying to condense her entire existence into a point, only to spread out from there, and it's not working.

There's so much to think about, so many plans to make. How is this supposed to even happen? Agnes could see, but Anathema has to _do_. This does feel like the worst kind of punishment she could have been saddled with; she should have kept the second volume and stuck to whatever it was it said.

But there's one thing she can't get out of the back of her mind, a fear that seems so much smaller and is breaking her in half: she cannot be trusted with this.

She is cutthroat; she doesn't care if she has to be cruel to reach a goal. It's not that she's mean, it's just that things that block her family's path are unacceptable and to be removed as quickly as possible. She's that way because the Devices are supposed to be that way. That's how they've survived. She gets the very strong sense that Agnes was exactly the same, able to see the future but warning no one but her kin.

A Device should not be trusted with the Power of the Devices. That thought has Anathema paralyzed.

Newt finds her in bed, in front of a notebook with pages torn out; she hasn't crumpled them up, just dropped them beside her, letting them splay out on the floor. "Are you alright?" he says gently, sitting down next to her and lifting the notebook out of her hands.

"I'm fine," she says as he puts the notebook on the nightstand, and she knows she sounds unsteady.

"Are you really?" he says, with that face he makes that makes her want to crack herself open, admit everything.

She sighs. "No."

He moves to be closer, so he can sit beside her and put his arm around her. She knows he's not going to ask what's wrong; he's much better at petting hair and providing warmth than he is at carefully coaxing things out of her.

"I think I might be too ruthless to be trusted with the future," she says, because it works anyway.

"Hm," Newt says, because of course he does. "There were some pretty ruthless characters in your family, and you saved the world."

"Name one," Anathema says.

"Agnes," Newt says.

"Hm," Anathema says.

"You really think that if you just started writing, all that would come out was cruelty?" he asks. "Because nothing about that sounds like you."

"How could I know it wasn't?" she challenges. "Nobody could promise me I wouldn't make things worse."

Newt doesn't say anything for a long moment, but by now she can tell the difference between a contemplative pause and an awkward one. "What if I had a weird idea?" he says.

"Nothing about that would faze me," Anathema replies.

"I, um, I know I'm not a Device," he says, and both of them leave unsaid several things, "but the Power seems to work on me. That was the first thing you did."

She frowns, not following. "Yeah."

"So what if you were in charge?" he says, a bit shyly. "What if I gave you permission to do anything you could think of to me? You could write it down, and it would happen."

"You wouldn't be able to stop me," she says, with a combination of possibility and panic she doesn't know what to do with. "I could do anything."

"I know," he says. "You'll do the right thing, because you're the right person to do this." He takes her hand. "This is safe with you. _I'm_ safe with you."

"When do you want to do this?" Anathema asks suspiciously.

"Um," he says, blushing, and she rolls her eyes. "It's just that I'd be really vulnerable, and I'd be particularly easy to hurt. It's a dangerous scenario, but you won't be able to hurt anyone else."

"Hm," she says, because now it's a puzzle to solve, a target to hit, and somehow that makes it so much easier. "Let me think about it."

"As much time as you need," he says, which Anathema knows very well means he'll be sitting on his hands, trying not to press her and accidentally making it very obvious that he really, really wants to.

But she actually does think about it, and she actually does talk to him about it. She still doesn't know how she feels about the idea, but she doesn't feel like she's being forced to do it. She's forcing herself a little, but that's not Newt's fault. She's terrified that she'll fail, that she'll hurt Newt, that she'll scare herself, but that fear isn't going to be swept away by continuing to almost write things down, just to stop at the last moment and crumple up the paper in hopes of keeping the words contained.

So it comes to the two of them, standing at the base of the stairs, as Anathema writes in her notebook and Newt, two steps up, looks down at her, waiting for what she has to say.

"Ten minutes from now, Newt will be sitting at the foot of our bed, naked," she reads. She looks up at him. "That's the last one you're getting out loud. I just wanted to give you fair warning."

"Wouldn't want to rip my clothes," he says, which falls flat a little. He turns to go up the stairs, turning back when she doesn't follow. "Are you coming?"

"Not just yet," she says.

"Write whatever you want," Newt says gently, which Anathema didn't expect. "You already know I'm yours."

With that, he walks up the stairs, and Anathema is left standing there, completely unsure what's going to happen even though she has it all in her hands.

She stands there just breathing for a moment, trying to center herself. She holds the notebook in front of her, staring down at the pages; this isn't the purpose she intended for it, but like all notebooks, that purpose didn't actually happen and it sat idle. It's as good as any. If this doesn't work, she'll cut the pages out. If somehow, inexplicably, it does, maybe it'll make a convenient place for more, if that's a thing she even wants.

She steels herself, thinking for a long moment and then writing down a few extremely specific and quite graphic sentences. She puts her pen in the book and closes it. She looks at her watch; it's just about time.

She takes another deep breath and walks into the bedroom.

Newt is, exactly as he should be, sitting at the foot of the bed, naked, waiting for her. He looks a little self-conscious, and she regrets making him wait. "Okay?" she says, going to him and stroking his hair.

"I'll be fine," he says. He doesn't seem scared or worried at all, which is a nice change from how Anathema feels. "I'm in good hands."

"I wouldn't make up your mind about that just yet," she says.

"Too late," he tells her. "I'm certain that--" He breaks off suddenly, and his fingernails make an audible scratching noise when he clutches at the sheets.

"Hm," Anathema says, looking him over. "I didn't actually know if that would work."

"It worked," Newt says, his voice a little high pitched. His cock was at the level of vaguely interested a few seconds ago, but now it's drawn up almost to his stomach, a bead of moisture appearing at the tip as Anathema watches.

"I just didn't know whether I could control your actions, or your body, or your surroundings, or what," she says. "So I tried a couple of things."

"I don't think you're going to tell me what," he says. He raises one of his hands; he looks at it, then at Anathema. "This seems like kind of a step back."

"Try to lower it," she says, studying him. He visibly tries, frowning when it doesn't work. "What does it feel like?"

"Um," Newt says. "I'm trying to move it, but I know it's supposed to be up there, so I can't."

"Drop your arm," she says, and it falls before Newt can do anything. "Interesting."

She can see it when her next bit of writing kicks in. He gets out of bed and walks around to lay down properly, which Anathema figured would look more dignified than just scrambling. He wraps his hands around the headboard, laying himself out with his knees bent. "That feels very disorienting," he says.

"Is it scary?" Anathema asks, guilty all of a sudden.

"Why would it be?" he says, with a look of perfect trust on his face. "You'd never make me do anything I didn't want to do."

"I don't know why you're so convinced of that," she says, opening the book. She writes something very simple that she really didn't think she should write; now that she's here, she can't not write it, just for her own sake.

"Because you're scary but I'm too in love with you to be afraid of you," Newt says. He pulls back, blinking. "You just wrote down what I think you did, didn't you?"

Anathema looks back down at the book and swallows. It reads probably exactly the way Newt thinks it does: _Until Newt puts his clothes back on, he will only tell the truth._ "Yeah," she says, wincing. "Sorry."

"I wish you'd told me, but I think I can handle it," Newt says, and he doesn't look nearly as bothered by it as Anathema thinks he should.

"How do you feel?" Anathema asks.

His head goes back. "So turned on that I can only think straight because you cast a spell on me."

"Still?" she says.

"It hasn't been five minutes," he says, looking back up at her. "And I don't think you gave me permission to stop."

"Well, you're right about that," she says, and she taps the pen against the notebook. 

"I'll tell you I'm okay with it if it'll make you relax," he says helpfully.

"Are you actually okay with it?" she says, because that statement wasn't as truthful as it sounded. He would tell her that was okay; that doesn't mean he'd mean it.

"Yes," he says, because he does mean it, apparently. "I like being at your mercy. I always have."

"Huh," Anathema says, looking down at her notebook so she doesn't have to look at the trust on his face. 

"Everything is fine, and I would really like to move this towards one or both of us getting off," he says, and Anathema laughs, caught off guard.

"Is that what you think about in bed?" she says.

"I mostly think about how good you look naked and what I want to do for you," Newt says, blushing furiously.

She studies him for a moment, the long lines of him across the bed. There are a lot of possibilities; she hadn't let herself think through them as much as she might have, being mostly convinced this wasn't going to work. She writes something else down, wording it carefully.

Newt takes one of his hands away from the headboard; the motion doesn't seem like it's forced, just like he was going to do it so he did it, even though he's moving under her control. He puts his hand on his abdomen, sliding it slowly down, and he sighs as he finally reaches his cock. He wraps his hand around it in a loose grip, stroking it almost lazily.

"You're not going to let me come," he says.

"You'll come eventually," she assures him. "You just messed up and let me pick when."

"I don't think I messed up at all," he says.

She just watches him for a while; he's just winding himself up, tighter and tighter. His hand hasn't changed speed, moving steadily up and down his long, thick cock. He's biting his lip, thrusting up into it in an attempt to get more, his other hand still clenched around the headboard. He is a sight, and the thought that she did that to him is heady.

"How is it?" she asks.

Newt groans. "Unbelievably frustrating," he says. "I'll keep going as long as you want if you like it."

"It's okay so far," she says.

"I desperately hope you want to join me," he says.

"I'm not ruling it out," she tells him. She watches him a little bit more, the sweat starting to appear on his hairline, the way he's panting, looking just a little bit wrecked. She writes another directive in her notebook, then puts the pen in it and closes it, setting it aside.

The high collar of her shirt has a ribbon tie, and she starts there, just because it's honestly pretty uncomfortable. She undoes the button beneath it, then moves down to her skirt, the part that actually has to come off first. She steps out of it without much fanfare, laying it over the back of the chair so that it won't get wrinkled.

She looks up, and Newt is staring at her, his eyes locked onto her body. It's what she wrote down, but she wasn't quite prepared for it. Her hands shake a bit as she undoes the buttons of her shirt, and somehow she can feel him following the movement.

"You're so beautiful," he says, sighing.

She blushes, but her hands don't stop. "I didn't tell you you had to talk."

"You didn't tell me I couldn't," he says; he's still stroking his cock, not having been allowed to stop, and his arm jerks when he tries to, probably, speed up. "You're the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen."

That's how he's looking at her, like she's something special, fantastic, extraordinary. It doesn't have anything to do with what she wrote, which was just that he would watch. "I'm the only woman you've ever _seen_ ," she says.

"I've seen naked women before," he says, and she gives him a look. "They were on paper, but they still didn't have any clothes on. You're far more attractive."

"Being flesh and blood and willing to let you touch me adds to my appeal," she says, which comes out meaner than intended.

"It would be a little sick if it didn't," Newt says, raising an eyebrow.

She pauses in the middle of opening up her shirt. "Touché."

She'd kind of had the idea that she was going to strip for him, tease it out, make it slow so he had to wait, but it turns out that she hates it. Instead she makes the same economical movements that she always does, shedding her clothing quickly and efficiently. It doesn't seem to matter to Newt, because he's still staring, his face a little bit dreamy, the way it gets sometimes when he's looking at her naked.

Anathema picks her notebook back up, and suddenly she doesn't have anything to say, all of it dried up.

"I want so badly to do everything you want," he says, looking at her with an intense longing that she can feel in her stomach.

She just stares at him, and she's gripped with the same fear and indecision that she's felt before. She doesn't want to leave him like this; she doesn't even want to stop, but she can't make herself go, like a car that won't move into Drive, like a pendulum that won't pick a direction.

"Anathema," he says gently.

She lets out a breath. "Fuck it," she says, and scribbles something down.

She lays the notebook carefully within reach and climbs onto the bed; Newt lets go of the headboard, stretching his arm out before turning to Anathema. He pulls her to him, kissing her sweetly. His hand slips between her legs, stroking over her; she's wet from watching him, and his fingers slide into her without much effort.

"Take me," she says, arching up towards him.

"I have a feeling I'm about to," he says.

"You're not wrong," she says, and she lets her thighs fall open so he can get between them.

She groans as he pushes into her; his cock is the biggest one she's taken, and she's not sure she could step back down. He didn't really know what he was doing at first, big gangly virgin, but he picked it up easily. Before him--before multiple rounds with him, the first time was very stressful--she didn't understand that sex could be relaxing. She doesn't have to do anything to impress him except show up, and if she wants to lie back sometimes and make him do all the work, it doesn't have to mean anything about her.

It means a lot about him, but she's okay with that part. Newt doesn't seem to mind either.

He makes love to her slowly, steadily; she could have directed him more than she chose to, but what she really wanted was him, the way he does it of his own accord, which she really enjoys. It also sounded like it could be intensely jarring for him if he wasn't given at least that much free rein, his body moving in an unfamiliar way, beyond his control. This is beyond his control, but she knows somehow that there's a line, a limit.

Newt doesn't seem to be worried in the slightest by how it's happening, kissing every part of her he can reach as they move together. He's treating her like he loves her, like he adores her, like she is a precious thing he is being allowed to hold. She didn't write any of that down; that's just the way things are. She's done this to him, and she hasn't hurt him at all, which is good, because she desperately loves him, all the way down to her core, more than she'd ever admit.

It's a weird epiphany to have during sex, but that's the whole fear of it rolled into a ball: she loves her family, and she'll never stop trying to save the world, and the idea of either one being harmed by her actions is so abhorrent that she hasn't been able to do anything at all. But Newt acts like that's not even a possibility, that it is so inherently right that she should be the one doing this that questioning it seems pointless.

She sighs, overtaken, and Newt kisses her parted lips, not letting an opportunity go.

An age later, she's covered in sweat and incredibly satisfied, a little sore from going so long but in a way that makes her slip her hand between her thighs and press up against it, just to enjoy how it aches. Newt is laying beside her, and as he likes to do, he's curled around her, his head resting on her chest. She runs her fingers through his thick hair, making whorls in it, enjoying how it feels under her hand.

"How do you feel?" she asks.

"Freezing, because you always steal all the blankets but I don't feel like it's polite to stop you," he says.

"Oh, um, shit," Anathema says. She spots Newt's clothes, folded on a chair, and she hurriedly hops out of bed and grabs the first thing she finds, which is his underwear. "Put these on."

"Okay," he says, pulling them on and covering up, which is kind of a shame even though it's unlikely he's getting it up again any time soon.

"Tell me you hate crossword puzzles," she says, which is the first thing she thinks of for some reason.

"But I love crossword puzzles," he says, looking confused. A lightbulb goes off. "Oh, you want me to lie! Um, I hate crossword puzzles, the American ones are much more clever than the real ones, sudoku is painfully hard--"

"Right, I think we're good," she says.

"That part was useful, but I didn't quite enjoy it," he says.

"It--" Anathema feels uncomfortable, small, and she doesn't know how to continue. 

"I know why you did it," Newt says, curling himself around her again, an arm over her stomach. "You had to know. That isn't wrong. I could have said anything at all just to make you feel better. I see why you didn't want that."

She tugs on his hair. "I never want that."

"I know," he says.

They're just laying like that for a while; Anathema gives him a corner of the sheets, even though she does hog them and doesn't really feel bad about it. He's warm against her anyway, comforting.

"Agnes wants you to change your name when we get married," she says, the part of all of this that she hasn't told anyone.

"Oh," Newt says, raising himself up to look at her face. "Are--are we getting married?"

"Do you want to?" Anathema says, suddenly seized with fear even though she's sure they both know the answer.

He dips his head, looking bashful. "Very much, actually."

"Then yes," she says, with a certainty that is all show. She shrugs. "Most of the men who marry into my family do change their last names to Device."

"It would be easier to spell," he muses.

"Then it's settled," Anathema says. "Newton Device."

"I think I could be okay with that," Newt says, moving up to kiss her.

\--

Anathema sits down at the kitchen table, a notebook in front of her. This one is large, leatherbound, one that will stand up to long term use. She feels the same trepidation you always feel when looking at a blank notebook, the feeling that you won't be able to go back once you start.

She thinks for a while, about what is best, about what is compassionate, about what she can do with one pen. There are many avenues to go down, but she chooses one:

_The child of the Last Witch will invent a mechanized system whereby rivers can be efficiently cleaned of trash without harm to the environment. This system will be inexpensive and durable, and it will be adopted throughout all appropriate riverine areas._

She knows very well that she's just committed a lot of people to a lot of things, including herself, but it's a start.


End file.
